Every time I’m home for a weekend, I always manage to bump into someone I know. Whether it’s at the supermarket or walking down Ridgewood Avenue, I always end up stumbling across either a former teacher, parent of a friend, or one of my mom’s friend’s husband’s next door neighbor. I guess that’s part of living in Ridgewood, though. Here are some things you know to be true if you’re from our little village
1. You may not know everyone, but you know a little bit about everyone.
It’s hard to know every person within a town. While I recognize plenty of faces as I walk through the aisles of Stop & Shop, I’d never be able to put a name to every face I smile at. However, someone could say the name of a particular person and some rumor/story/experience comes to mind whether I’ve met the person or not. We’re a gossip town, there’s no denying it.
2. You either play a sport or you go to the games.
If you were born and raised in Ridgewood, you either play lacrosse or soccer, or you’re at the games cheering for your home team. When we played at Metlife, if you weren’t on the field, you definitely had a huge cutout of your favorite player and screamed as loud as you possibly could.
3. At some point in your high school career, you had Chuck Johnson and Downtown Jacob Brown.
There’s no way to get through your four years at RHS without having Coach Johnson and Mr. Brown. And that’s a good thing. If you learned one thing in your years at RHS, it’s that every teacher you’ll have will know of Jacob Brown and is also bound to make some sort of comment about how he’s been teaching there since the dinosaurs. If you weren’t one of the athletes, it was hard to truly appreciate Coach J during the high school years. However, now that you’re out of RHS, you’ll occasionally find yourself thinking about how proud he’d be if he saw you at the gym now.
4. Just because the rest of New Jersey and New York have snow days, does not mean Ridgewood will.
You’ll find yourself excited over the snow storm prediction and you’ll probably refresh the school website waiting for an announcement. Then, after about 10 minutes of waiting, you remember you’re in Ridgewood. School isn’t closing unless Hurricane Sandy comes back.
5. Since we can’t handle the world “failure” we get E’s, not F’s.
If you’ve ever found yourself in danger of failing, the potential for an E as a final grade is terrifying. Because of the sheltered way of life, apparently we aren’t capable of handling the word “fail” so instead, you could find an E for effort as your final grade.
6. The day you entered sixth grade, you were hanging out outside Rite Aid for no apparent reason.
This one will always be a mystery to me. Whether you wanted to or not, as soon as you were in middle school, you and your group of friends could suddenly be found outside Rite Aid, chocolate in hand, just standing around talking about exciting sixth-grade gossip.
7. No matter the time crunch, there’s always time for Hot Bagels.
If you had a double lunch, the walk to Hot Bagels was a common trip. But even when you only had the 45-minute lunch period, it was still a given that a huge group could be found migrating to Hot Bagels. And we’re all guilty of finding enough people to make sure our order came to just enough to have it delivered. But as soon as we found out they weren’t allowed to deliver to RHS anymore? You can rest assured knowing we’re willing to walk down Beverly just a little bit to meet the car and get our bagels.
8. Going “into town” after school was the cool thing to do.
The walk from RHS down Ridgewood Avenue to get to Starbucks was no more than 10 minutes. So obviously we all did it during lunch, free periods, and double lunches. But even after school, going into town was the thing to do. It was always certain you’d be near someone you knew while waiting at Starbucks, it was simply a matter of whether or not you’d acknowledge the person you knew.
9. The East Side/West Side rivalry.
Up until high school, the chances of having friends from the “other” side of town were pretty slim. Not only does the East Side vs. West Side rivalry exist, we carry it into BF vs. GW. As soon as freshman year comes, you can immediately tell who is from the East side and who is from the West. Our initial thoughts were to make sure we steered clear of those from the other side and stuck to who we knew. But as time went on, you probably found yourself making friends with people from the other side of town, and realized they weren’t so bad after all.
10. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is at the Fourth of July parade.
It’s no secret we take the Fourth of July very seriously. Every elementary school spent a while perfecting their float to make sure they could win an award at the end of the parade (Travell always coming in with at least a few awards). Our parade is one of the most well-known in New Jersey, and we’ll be sure to let the out-of-town people know who’s boss.
11. We are a tradition of excellence.
No matter how much we gossip or how much we’re willing to talk about each other, our little village is something we’re pretty proud of. We all have our moments, but there’s no better place to be in a time of need. If there’s one thing you can count on in Ridgewood, it’s that every person is willing to lend a hand in a time of need. No matter what the situation is, I’m constantly in awe of the offers that come forward when someone is going through a rough time or just needs a little help. When there’s a tragedy, you can bet Ridgewood families will have your breakfast, lunch, and dinner made for you for a few months straight. As the saying goes, we may not have it all together, but together we have it all.
